The most popular alternative social-media site that respondents mentioned opening accounts with was the free, open-source software platform Mastodon.4 out of 5 scientists agree, mastodon is ok.
About half of the people whose primary or secondary reasons fit into this category talked about content warnings, and most of those responses pointed to what they perceived as unreasonable—or in several cases anti-trans or racist—expectations for content warnings.Lots and lots of work to do to make alternative spaces more welcoming.
People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.Yes, some tough decisions ahead for Mastodon moderators with Facebook starting to pay attention to the Fediverse. I don't think people should prescribe how other people should use social media. I also think Facebook has a long track record of enshittifying everything it touches so it makes sense for people to try to keep Facebook as far away from their social media experience as possible. I hope as long we have and use open protocols and promote the idea that we should control our data, people will find a balance that works for them.
I've been using this browser plug-in for a while now and so far it has detected 16 Mastodon accounts. Today it let me know that Slashdot has an official Mastodon account. Who knew? Anyway, StreetPass is RIYLM.
- Mastodon users verify themselves by adding a custom link to their personal site.
- StreetPass lets you know when you've found one of these links, and adds them to your StreetPass list.
If we want more people to enjoy what we believe are the benefits of something like Mastodon, it’s on us to make it delicious and convenient and multi-textured and fun instead of trying to shame people into eating their soysage and unsalted soup.Classic case of built-by-engineers-for-engineers that is difficult to escape. I love Mastodon but as a decentralization enthusiast and developer I am also the target market. I hope the new onboarding process and features on the way like improved search will help.
"Mastodon, a text-based social network similar to Twitter, is the most popular example of ActivityPub in action. Users can post text, share images, and follow others. But Mastodon, unlike Twitter, is not hosted as a singular service but instead a collection of independent servers that communicate through ActivityPub. Joining Mastodon means joining a server with its own community and code of conduct. Users can interact with users on other servers, but their account is hosted on the server they choose."Nice intro to Mastodon here. And speaking of apps, I have been using Ivory as my main mobile Mastodon app for a while now and I'm enjoying it more than the official app. It's great to have so many options.
"The most remarkable aspect of the project is that Meta plans for the network to be decentralized. While the company would not elaborate beyond its statement, in a decentralized network individual users are typically able to set up their own, independent servers and set server-specific rules for how content is moderated."Using ActivityPub, no less! I did not foresee a pivot from metaverse to fediverse. Text updates? In this economy?!
"How will these smaller groups of happier people be monetized? This is a tough question for the billionaires. Happy people, the kind who eat sandwiches together, are boring. They don’t buy much. Their smartphones are six versions behind and have badly cracked screens. They fix bicycles, then they talk about fixing bicycles, then they show their friend, who just came over for no reason, how they fixed their bicycle, and their friend says, “Wow, good job,” and they make tea. That doesn’t seem like enough to build a town square on."That sounds delightful, but doesn't scale. I would like to quote every sentence in this piece by Paul Ford. The scattering!
"Stanford’s communicative infrastructure cannot depend on the judgment of social media companies or volunteer maintainers of servers, and social media is too important for our university to leave on the hands of profit-making enterprises or well-meaning nonprofits."I think all institutions should be considering this if they believe social media is an important way to communicate.
"Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket from about 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November, Mastodon’s CEO, founder, and lead developer Eugen Rochko said in a new blog post."Heh, flocked. That's a lot of people who are suddenly active on an ad-free network. They might get used to that! I'm volunteering a monthly amount to my Mastodon instance admins and I hope enough of that kind of direct support can keep the alternative social media lights on.
"The post-Twitter platforms like Mastodon and Tumblr are E2E platforms, designed around the idea that if someone asks to hear what you have to say, they should hear it. Rather than developing algorithms to override your decisions, these platforms have extensive tooling to let you fine-tune what you see."History is repeating in the social media world and Cory Doctorow provides the context. Chokepoint capitalism is a good term for something I didn't have a term for before.
tbray.org
Nature
Erin Kissane
Ploum.net
streetpass.social
IEEE Spectrum
Platformer
Wired
stanforddaily.com
The Verge
pluralistic.net